Designing Learning ObjectsPart of
my ongoing series for the Australian Flexible Learning
Community, this article looks at dsome of the issues facing
designers of learning objects. The article is too short (I
only have 1000 words) but as with some of my other work, I
try to foster the idea that designing learning like a game
is the only real way to address the issues raised by
Friesen, Wiley, and for that matter, myself. "What makes an
object - whether it be a digital image, some text, or even
a butler - a learning object? That is like asking, what
makes an object a part of a play? An object is part of a
play if it is used in a play: there are no essential
qualities otherwise. And similarly, an object is a learning
object if it is used in learning. No other criteria apply.
Anything – absolutely anything – can be used in learning.
What makes it a learning object is that it has been used in
learning, that there is some educational context in which
the object was found to have pedagogical value." By
Stephen Downes, Australian Flexible Learning Community,
August 4, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Redefining the Role of Computers in
Education, The Vendors' CurriculaThe
interesting bit in this story it the little chart in the
middle matching specific vendor websites to subjects. The
idea, writes the author, is that vendors are finally
matching online learning content to curricula. If so, then
what we should see as the very next development is an
expansion of the chart, as vendors (and others, such as
providers of free content) target specific grades in
specific subjects, and then even specific topics within
specific grades in specific subjects. This is not a simple
thing, because of course curricula vary with district. But
this - mark my words - is where we're headed. By Neil
Mercurius, Techlearning, August 1, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Open Content and Value
CreationWhe I agitate for free and open
content, people are always asking me about how the writer
is supposed to get paid. I respond that the writer is paid
by the publisher, not by the end user, and that the
publisher may be paid by any number of entities:
government, corporate sponsors, foundations, or technology
providers. This last group is the most interesting. They
want to sell technology (computers, internet access,
software) to end users. But end users need some reason to
buy all this stuff. So the technology provider pays for
some content, which entices the user to buy the technology.
Everybody gets paid. But this is only one model, and not
even a prevalent model. For more models, and a good
discussion of the economic models behind open source, have
a look at this article. It won't really answer the question
of how the author gets paid, but it will give you some
models to use when you think about payment systems on the
internet. And it you think about it, and work the models a
bit, you can see that free and open content be a
viable economic model, provided you think about the entire
system, and not merelyly the relationship between the
writer and the reader. By Magnus Cedergren, First Monday,
August 1, 2003 4:29 p.m.
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

The RoMEO Project: Protecting Metadata in an
Open Access EnvironmentI honestly don't know
why people would make their metadata available for the
world to use, and then start worrying about protecting it
from use. It's the same story time after time, an open
dataspace is created, people flood the space with data to
take advantage of the free access, and then they start
thinking about how to close off the space. Anyhow. This
article describes the efforts of The RoMEO Project (Rights
Metadata for Open archiving). "It is investigating all the
intellectual property rights (IPR) issues relating to the
self-archiving of research papers via institutional
repositories. One key issue is how best to protect such
research papers, and the metadata describing those papers,
in an open access environment." See what I mean? My
one-cent solution is this: if you don't want people to use
your metadata, don't publish it. And for goodness
sake, don't make life miserable for the rest of us just
because you can't exercise a little self restraint. I mean,
what the heck do you think 'Open Access Environment'
means? By Elizabeth Gadd, Charles Oppenheim and
Steve Probets, Ariadne, July 31, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Open Source Portfolio
InitiativeFrom the website: " The Open Source
Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) is a collaborative, open
source, software development project based on the
University of Minnesota System's (U of MN) electronic
portfolio (ePortfolio) software." Via SiT, the OSPI has
just made it's first release avaiulable as a download.
Get it while it's fresh! By Various Authors, Open Source
Portfolio Initiative, July 30, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Extending RSSAnother article on
extending RSS beyond a simple descriptions of links on
blogs. This article is a bit technical, but it shows in
detail how the simple syndication standard can be used to
distribute all kinds of information. For example, suggests
the article, a company could use RSS to list its product
offerings by defining two new RSS terms, 'product' and
'version'. The author shows exactly how to do this in such
a way that people receiving the feed could receive a list
of products the way they today receive a list of blog
posts. This is something I have been advocating for some
time, and why I proposed RSS_LOM and will be proposing a couple of
other extensions in the near future. By Danny Ayers,
XML.Com, July 23, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]